SKETCH OF THE BOOTHIANS. 



of domestic happiness which is so rarely found any where, it is 

 a conclusion, I fear, that reflection would not justify, and that 

 a more intimate experience perhaps would not have confirmed. 



The forms of matrimony seemed here not to differ from what 

 has been observed in other tribes of the Esquimaux, excepting 

 that the young female must make her choice as soon as she is 

 marriao-eable — but, the contract, such as it is, is settled between 

 the parents for their children, and often at a very early age: the 

 time of marriage seems to be about the age of fifteen ; and there 

 is no other form but that of the female going to the hut of her 

 destined husband. 



I believe that the practice of repudiation and change, whether 

 of husbands or wives, has been found in all the Esquimaux who 

 have come under the notice of navigators. Be that as it may, it 

 is the custom in this district, though it was not easy to trace the 

 extent to which it is curried. How far it may depend on satiety 

 or disao^reement, we could not discover, or on the desire of 

 change, or on more improper feelings, on either side : but where 

 the morals and the feelings are both so extremely lax on this 

 subject as we found them, it would be an idle and silly defence of 

 this or any other mode of the savage condition, to suppose that 

 vice, or what at least we must consider such, was a frequent 

 source of this practice. It has been the custom, on one side, to 

 overrate the virtues of savage nations, and, on the other, to 

 exa"-'»-erate their vices. These things must be left to the novelist, 

 and to the navigator who desires to emulate him, for the sake of 

 producing an efi'ect ; to the false philanthropist and the lover of 



